The Russian Church urges EU leadership to understand spiritual reasons behind the recession

14. May 2009 - 9:31

The Moscow Patriarchate reminded EU leadership of spiritual roots of the current downfall. "With any crisis, we need primarily to look for spiritual reasons. This is also true for the current economic recession," head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Bishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk said at a meeting of the President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso and the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering with representatives of European traditional religions held in Brussels.

Bishop Hilarion called ironical the situation when "the crisis mostly affects those who directly participate in the production of material values, and the major financial support is given to stock exchanges, banks, and international corporations, that is, to those institutions which are to blame for the recession."